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December 19, 2014Friday of the Third Week of Advent    Reading 1 Jgs 13:2-7, 24-25a There was a certain man from Zorah, of the clan of the Danites,whose name was Manoah. His wife was barren and had borne no children. An angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her,“Though you are barren and have had no children,yet you will conceive and bear a son. Now, then, be careful to take no wine or strong drinkand to eat nothing unclean.As for the son you will conceive and bear,no razor shall touch his head,for this boy is...

I kinda wasn't too surprised to hear the pope say he prays that people fall to temptation. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out the kind of Catholics he curses. You know the irony of his ruthless perversion of prayer and role of a Pope? Catholics who want their religion taught to them are the very Catholics who humbly acknowledge their temptation and sin. That is why we constantly beg for pastoral perspectives on ways to recognize the devil long before he has us duped, ways to circumvent temptation and sin and remain in a state of Sanctifying...

Why Don’t Catholics Read the Bible?by Dwight Longenecker The independent Evangelical church I went to as a boy gave me a fantastic amount of Bible knowledge. There were Bible drills in Sunday School classes, Bible memory contests and Bible quizzes, not to mention a complete grounding in all the Bible stories—illustrated with those wonderful flannelgraph figures. As I got older I listened to long Bible sermons, went to home Bible studies, youth Bible camps and a Bible holiday club. I ended up going to a Christian University where Bible study was part of our everyday schedule. Our Christian home...

I’ve been through hell several dozen times, and each time I go I want to take pictures and bring them back to show life-size on my living room wall with my $399 data projector from Microcenter in order to warn my family and friends. I find in the Gospel of Luke my folly in this daydream, for “if they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (16:31).Oh, well. If people won’t heed warnings, the next best thing is to give them a list of 10 must-see...

Featured Term selected at random:BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY A term used by Petrarch and later writers of the exile of the popes at Avignon, France, from 1309 to 1377. Seven French popes--so called Clement V, John XXII, Benedict XII, Clement VI, Innocent VI, Blessed Urban V, and Gregory XI--were involved. Pope Gregory, the last one, yielded to the entreaties of St. Catherine of Siena (1347-80) to return to Rome in sprite of the protests of the King of France and most of the cardinals. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with...

Run, Don’t Walk, to the Nearing Jesus! By: Msgr. Charles PopeThe Lord’s coming is near. And though we have all been well taught that the word “Advent” means “coming,” there is the danger that we think we are only passively waiting for him to come.  It is not just that the Lord is coming to us, but that we are also journeying to Him. In fact, as the Advent prayers in the Roman Missal instruct, we ought to run, not walk, and hasten to greet Him as He draws near.The image of the Prodigal Son comes to mind. His...

In 1909, a small community of farmers purchased some land for a Catholic mission church; after World War II, the area boomed with aviation and aerospace industries. St John Chrysostom Church in Inglewood, California, which seats at least 1,000, was finished in 1959 to accommodate this growing, thriving Catholic population. It is located minutes from Los Angeles International Airport and the 405 freeway.An “Art Deco Revival” edifice built entirely of reinforced concrete, St. John’s 182ft carillon bell tower can be seen from miles away. Art Deco-inspired architectural forms are used throughout the church, and the 42ft walls house intricate, Celtic...

We publish an analysis by John Thavis, journalist, author and speaker specializing in Vatican and religious affairsToday's Vatican report on the investigation of U.S. women's religious orders was largely positive in tone, in contrast to statements issued when the investigation began in 2009. At that time, Cardinal Franc Rodé, who headed the Vatican congregation for religious orders, said the study was aimed at identifying "secular" and "feminist" attitudes that had infiltrated the nuns' orders and helped cause a drastic decline in membership. Today's report didn't go there. Instead, it delineated real challenges facing religious orders while thanking the sisters repeatedly...

A woman kneels down as she lays flowers in a makeshift memorial near the site where a gunman held hostages for 16 hours at a popular Sydney cafe, Australia (PA) Father Brendan Purcell is based at St Mary's Cathedral, close to where Monday's siege took placeAn Irish priest based in Sydney said he was struck by how people turned to prayer when a gunman took hostages at a cafe.Father Brendan Purcell is based at St Mary’s Cathedral, just a five-minute walk from the nearby Lindt Cafe, where Iranian-born gunman Man Haron Monis took dozens of hostages on Monday morning.Father...

One young woman, a college student at Texas Christian University, tells the following story: “Several years ago, a 19-year-old mother found herself pregnant in Houston, Texas from a one night stand. She had a thriving acting and modeling career and was planning to move to LA to persue more in the performing arts as soon as she had enough money. Her parents were ex-pats in Indonesia, and she was living alone in the big city with no one to turn to. She had enough money to get an abortion, and she had the legal right to get an abortion since...

December 18, 2014Thursday of the Third Week of Advent    Reading 1 Jer 23:5-8 Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD,when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David;As king he shall reign and govern wisely,he shall do what is just and right in the land.In his days Judah shall be saved,Israel shall dwell in security.This is the name they give him:“The LORD our justice.” Therefore, the days will come, says the LORD,when they shall no longer say, “As the LORD lives,who brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt”;but rather, "As the LORD...

George Weigel About a year ago, I suggested to one of the top editors of a major American newspaper that his journal’s coverage of things papal left something to be desired, as it seemed based on the assumption that Pope Francis was some kind of radical wild-man, eager to toss into the garbage bin of history all those aspects of Catholic faith and practice that mainstream western culture finds distasteful. My friend replied, in so many words, look, you know how these media narratives are: they’re like bamboo. Once they get started, there’s no stopping them. They just keep...

Where in the New Testament are "priests" mentioned? Full QuestionThe New Testament mentions three categories of Church leaders: bishops, presbyters, and deacons. So how can the Catholic Church justify its office of "priest"? The New Testament writers seem to understand "bishop" and "presbyter" to be synonymous terms for the same office (Acts 20:17-38). AnswerThe English word "priest" is derived from the Greek word presbuteros, which is commonly rendered into Bible English as "elder" or "presbyter." The ministry of Catholic priests is that of the presbyters mentioned in the New Testament (Acts 15:6, 23). The Bible says little about the duties...

FULL TITLE: Cardinal Burke receives petition signed by 30,000 supporters: says, ‘do not give way to discouragement!’ On Thursday, LifeSiteNews presented Cardinal Raymond Burke with a handsomely bound book signed by over 29,000 people who had expressed their thanks for the cardinal’s Vatican service, and pledged to pray for him and to follow his example.The cardinal expressed his “deepest gratitude” for the show of “support and most of all for your prayers.”An online petition of support for the Cardinal Burke, one of the most unequivocal pro-life and pro-family voices in the Catholic Church, was launched in November by LifeSiteNews after...

But this article isn’t about the whole apparition story so much as it is about the tilma, Juan Diego’s cloak, on which the image of the Blessed Mother was imprinted. In the centuries following the event, some amazing and unexplainable qualities have been discovered about it. Here’s four (literally) awesome facts about the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe:

Strange Moments In Liturgical History – How a Paragon of Liturgical Tradition May Have Caused Unintended Effects By: Msgr. Charles PopeIn the modern struggles and disagreements over the Liturgy, there tends to be a list of friends and opponents depending on one’s stance. For those of us with a more traditional leaning, Pope St. Pius X looms large as a friend and an image of tradition. He is usually seen as a defender of the tradition and a great proponent of what is called today the Extraordinary Form or Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)—so much so that the Society of...

NEW YORK (RNS) In the latest clash between the Catholic hierarchy and one of the church’s leading anti-abortion crusaders, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan accused the Rev. Frank Pavone of continuing to stonewall on financial reforms, and Dolan said he is cutting ties with his group, Priests for Life. In a Nov. 20 letter to other U.S. bishops, Dolan said he did not know if the Vatican would now step in to take action against the New York-based priest, who for years has angered various bishops by rejecting oversight of the organization by church authorities and for refusing to sort...

* Hundreds of displaced Iraqis, forced to evacuate their towns, will celebrate Christmas in this refugee camp in Erbil * They represent a tiny fraction of over three million Iraqi people 'internally displaced' - many of them in Kurdistan * The autonomous region in Northern Iraq is being pushed to breaking point by sheer number of new settlers * Families are safe, for now, from any immediate danger but dropping temperatures pose another serious threatThese beautiful pictures of Christmas prayers and glowing nativity scenes hide a much darker reality. Hundreds of Iraqi Christians, who now occupy these makeshift tents in...

MADRID (AP) -- A regional government in southern Spain has filed a complaint with Roman Catholic Church authorities over what it believes are church moves in recent years to blot out the Islamic past of Cordoba's ancient mosque-cathedral, one of the country's leading tourist attractions. The Andalusia region's tourism department said Monday the practice by church authorities who own the complex of calling it simply "The Cordoba Cathedral" on its website and on pamphlets and tickets could hurt tourism and confuse the 1 million-plus tourists who annually visit the "mezquita" (mosque), as it is known popularly. Tourism chief Rafael Rodriguez...

After a 3-year study of American women’s religious orders, undertaken because of problems that are both grave and obvious, the Congregation for Religious has released a report that avoids direct criticism of religious orders, instead suggesting that the communities should evaluate themselves. But for Catholics who long for a genuine revival of religious life in America, today’s report should not be too disheartening. First, because we knew this was coming. Second and more important, because another Vatican inquiry, aimed specifically at the Leadership Conference for Women Religious (LCWR), is still underway. This battle isn’t over yet. When the process began,...